World

Tortilla prices put hunger pressure on poor

by Pat Garcia | June 5, 2008 at 05:00 am

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Tortillas with beans and / or chile are what people in extreme poverty base their daily diet. It is already happening in many poor regions of the country, where they make their own tortillas.

One is never enough. Fill them with meat, with beans, with rice, with nothing, but one tortilla is never enough.

The size of a small plate, this soft, thin, unleavened corn bread is present at nearly every Mexican meal you eat.

Few people can make do with just one of them - a good half a dozen is about average.

That is, if you can afford it.

About 40m Mexicans live on $5 (£2.50) a day, or less.

Tortillas are what these people live on, so they are much more than just bread. And when the price of tortillas rises, it is big news.

That is why a recent announcement by Mexico's National Chamber for the Tortilla and Dough Industry made such an impact.

The chamber predicted that tortilla prices would rise by about 18% in the next month because of rising costs of fuel and corn.

It said the average price for a tonne of milled corn had gone from 3,000 pesos in January to 3,650 pesos now and that those rises would have to be passed on to consumers.

In simple terms, that would mean the price of a kilogram of tortillas would go up from about 8.5 pesos (80 US cents) a kilo now to around 10 pesos a kilo in June.

Protest marches

If you live on $5 a day, that kind of increase is a big deal - and the government knows it.